The Five Legged Table

A colleague of mine recently confessed her desire to get into better shape for the New Year, and while she demonstrated a genuine and frantic desire to lose weight and get fit, it became apparent quickly, that she was totally ignorant of how to go about achieving her goal. She knew she wanted to lose weight, and get fit and healthy, and was sure that neither Yoga nor weight training, were options, but beyond that, it was obvious she, like a lot of others, did not know much else about how to achieve her target. Her plan was subverted before she even started because she was uninformed and her attitude, coloured by tall stories about health and fitness, that have over time gained acceptance as fact. 

I want to dispel some of those myths or misconceptions for her, and you, who have probably made weight loss and fitness your New Years resolutions this year. First off, there is a difference between health and fitness. My colleague admitted that she wasn’t feeling healthy and wanted to get fit for the New Year, but what she didn’t realise is that by discounting Yoga and weight training, she was in effect dispensing with two very important constituents of her fitness goal. And I’m sure others have done the same, which probably accounts for a lot of the frustration that they feel, owing to their inability to make good on those get fit New Years resolutions. 

Health and fitness, though interrelated, are two very different things. Health at its simplest, can be defined as the absence of disease. Fitness, on the other hand refers to the body’s ability to function efficiently and handle the demands placed on it by daily living. They are interrelated, because fitness impacts the body’s ability to be disease free (healthy), so in order for my friend to be at her healthiest, she would have to achieve a degree of physical fitness and in order to be truly fit, there are five components or legs if you will, upon which her total fitness rests and which must form the foundation of any exercise programme. These are 1) cardio vascular/respiratory endurance; 2) muscular strength; 3) muscular endurance; 4) flexibility and 5) body composition.  

Cardio vascular/respiratory endurance is a central and important part of this “strange” five legged “table,” that trains the heart and lungs and makes them more efficient and healthier. Cardio is also great for burning fat, but isn’t going to magically solve all your health or fitness issues…certainly not in isolation or without an informed or calculated and deliberate approach. For example, your choice of activity and the intensity of the exercise will determine how many calories you burn and how quickly. Do it in combination with strength or resistance training, and you’ve got a major part of the metabolism, calorie burning prescription down. You may burn calories during cardio, but an increase in muscle strength and size translates to more fat free mass and a higher rate of metabolism, as the muscles continue to use calories well past the work out. Simply put muscle burns energy and the more muscles you have and the more you use them, the more calories they burn. And that doesn’t automatically translate into ladies bulking up which was a concern for my friend when I told her what I just told you…Growing muscle tissue doesn’t mean you’re going to start looking like a bodybuilder, but it will replace all the fat with muscle tissue and help you lose those important inches. A little known fact even by women is that women by their nature and hormonal make up will never grow beyond a certain level of muscularity. Because of the absence of enough testosterone in the female body women are genetically very limited in their ability to build huge bulky muscles, but that’s for another show.  

Apart from building muscle strength, you must devote attention to developing muscular endurance which is important to maintaining things like good posture, injury prevention and boosting your ability to perform physical tasks for longer periods. But all of this is pointless if your fitness scheme is without a flexibility element to it, which carries many benefits such as aiding posture; reducing muscle soreness; your ability to enjoy your workout and get back in the gym quicker; improving performance; improving muscle co-ordination; decreasing your injury risk and improving circulation and nutrient distribution throughout the body.  

What all this cardio and resistance training will do is help redefine your body composition, (the important fifth leg), by reducing your body fat and increasing your fat free mass (i.e. muscle, bone, and water) to a more healthy composition and a gorgeous lean body that will make you the envy of all your co-workers. But diet is an important piece of the puzzle that is often overlooked. There is absolutely no point pumping iron and running on the treadmill, or doing Yoga twice a day, six days a week if you’re going to stuff your body with junk and poison all day long. A balanced healthy diet is important. Your body is a machine that will work more efficiently if fueled by the right fodder and in the right amounts and at the right intervals. A diet that provides all of the essential nutrients, is high in healthy carbs, low in fat and a good measure of protein, is essential.  

So there you have it. The five must have components for achieving your fitness goals for the New Year. It’s not rocket science. You need ALL five legs for this table to stand. Improving muscular strength and endurance, cardio respiratory endurance, and flexibility all contribute to you having a healthy body composition (less fat, more muscle mass). This is critical because excessive body fat will negate all the other fitness components, impair performance, and put you at risk for heart disease and stroke. But if all of this seems intimidating to you, go out and get yourself a dietician or a personal trainer who can help clarify some of the information and help get you on the path to achieving your fitness goals in the New Year.  

ABOUT THE AUTHOR; Kendal Burton is a Certified Personal Trainer, Yoga Instructor and Certified Sports Nutrition Specialist